Tag: recipes

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Golden Sweet Potato Muffins

We all lead busy lives, whether we are a full time stay-at-home mother or father, a family juggling work, kids and their additional sporting, schooling and friendship commitments or business people. It is easy to push our nutritional needs to the wayside when our life seems to be in chaos. Unfortunately the repercussion of poor nutritional intake often means we crave sweet, salty and carbohydrate dense foods to give us an instant but short lived boost of energy to get us by.

Not with these beautifully golden muffins! They concur both your sweet and savoury cravings as well as provide sustained energy with balanced carbohydrates. They are also a quick and easy option to run to the car with.

What else have these babies got going for them?

  • They contain turmeric, praised for its anti-inflammatory abilities
  • They boast an enormous his of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants
  • They are flour and dairy free
  • They are low GI

Golden Sweet Potato Muffins

Serves: 12 muffins

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 60 minutes or until cooked through

Ingredients

  • 1 large sweet potato, peeled, cubed
  • 2 free-range eggs
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • ½ tsp turmeric
  • 2 cloves garlic (chopped)
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground sea salt
  • 2 green onions, chopped or ½ brown onion
  • 2 cups oat flour (2 cups regular oats blended down into flour)
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 170°C (fan-forced) and line muffin tray with cases
  2. Steam sweet potato until completely soft
  3. Mash sweet potato with a folk or place into blender.
  4. Using an electric beater, beat the mashed sweet potato, eggs, olive oil and salt together in a large mixing bowl until combined.
  5. Stir through chopped spring onion, garlic and turmeric.
  6. Add oat flour and baking powder and fold it into mixture until combined.
  7. Using a large dessert spoon, spoon mix into muffin cases and bake in the oven for 35 minutes-1 hour or until lightly browned and cooked through. Allow to cool in the tray.

You may store muffins in an airtight container in the fridge or freeze them. Re-heat them in the oven or microwave before serving.

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Homemade Oven Dried Tomatoes (AKA Sundried)

Sundried tomatoes are a tasty addition to any salad, antipasto plate or smashed avocado. Store bought sundried tomatoes however, often come with some nasty additives and unhealthy oils. Making them at home can be a sure fire way of ensuring they are as healthy and clean as possible but still absolutely delish!

Not only are they yummy, cooked tomatoes are higher in lycopene than their raw, fresh counterparts. Lycopene is a powerful antioxidant which has been praised for improving male prostate health, cardiovascular health and to protect against sun damage.

Homemade Oven Dried Tomatoes

  • 1kg Roma tomatoes
  • 3 tbsp. olive oil
  • Himalayan salt and pepper to taste

Method

Preheat oven to 100 degrees Celsius fan forced. Line a medium to large baking tray (or use two smaller trays) with baking paper or parchment paper.

Cut each tomato in half length ways. Lay out skin side down on the baking tray, leaving some space between them.

Drizzle olive oil lightly over each. Season with salt and pepper.

Place in the oven for 7-10 hours or until fluid has evaporated and tomatoes have flattened and shrivelled.

Store in a glass jar in the fridge with a 1/4 of the jar filled with olive oil.

Enjoy over salads, with antipasto platters or on your brekky avo on toast!

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Keto Bread Rolls (cut carbs)

keto bread rolls

The keto craze has well and truly kicked off and to those of you who are just starting up on their merry way, here is a recipe that will help you cut carbs without even knowing it! Bread lovers behold the ‘Keto Bread Rolls’.

The Keto Bread Roll Recipe

Ingredients 

Dry Ingredients

  • 5 tbsp. psyllium husk
  • 1 1/4 cups almond meal/flour
  • 1 tsp Celtic/Himalayan/Sea salt
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • optional 2 tbsp. sesame seeds (I let these out in this instance)

Wet Ingredients

  • 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
  • 3 egg whites (you can make flax eggs if you can not eat eggs)
  • 1 cup water, boiled

Method

Preheat your oven to 175C fan forced.

Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl.

Add all wet ingredients (boiling water, vinegar and egg whites) to dry ingredients.

Using a hand mixer, beat ingredients for 30 seconds (be sure not to overbeat).

Pre-grease a baking tray lined with baking paper.

With moist hands pull out six pieces of dough and lay them side by side with enough space to expand slightly on the tray.

Place in the oven on the lower shelf for approximately 50-60 minutes or until a tap on the bottom of the rolls produce a hollow sound.

Enjoy fresh or store airtight.

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Quinoa Christmas Salad

Christmas Salad

In Australia, Christmas is prime time for fresh, light salads to keep us going through the hot summer that we love so much being Aussies.

I hear time and time again that salads are BORING!

Well, below is a recipe that will make you rethink the boring old lettuce and tomato salad and have you lining up for seconds.

It is bright and full of exciting festive Christmas colours. Not only that, but this salad provides a protein, antioxidant, essential fatty acid and fibrous punch.

Have I got you excited yet?…

Quinoa is a seed (that’s right a seed, not grain), that somewhat resembles cous cous in texture and appearance. Did you know that Quinoa is one of the only vegan source of compete proteins? This, along with its long nutritional profile make it live up to its ‘superfood’ reputation.

Now that I have you eager to try out this salad, the recipe is as follows.

Quinoa Christmas Salad

Ingredients 

1 cup quinoa

2 cups water

1 tsp Himalayan/Celtic salt

1 red capsicum (diced)

1 yellow capsicum (diced)

1 green capsicum (diced)

1/2 cup walnut halves

1 medium/large pomegranate (hulled)

100g goat/sheep feta

3 tablespoons avocado (or 2 tablespoons olive oil)

1/2 pumpkin (diced, oven roasted and cooled )

1 can chickpeas (drained)

1 bunch mint leaves

additional salt/pepper to taste

Method

In a large saucepan, cook quinoa as you would rice using 1 cup of quinoa to 2 cups of water. Add more water as it is cooking until the quinoa becomes light, soft and fluffy.

Remove quinoa from the stove and allow to cool. In a separate, large salad serving bowl add all capsicum, pumpkin, chickpeas and pomegranate, mixed through gently.

Add the avocado or olive oil to the cooled quinoa and mixed through. Add approximately 1 tsp of salt or to your own taste. Add quinoa to the salad bowl with the other prepared ingredients.  Add walnuts and mix through. Add mint leaves and mix through. Finally, add feta and mix through.

Serve on the Christmas table with your ham, seafood, turkey or any other meat. Also great the next day as leftovers!

 

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Healthy Kheema Curry Recipe

Kheema Curry

Did you know turkey is healthy, high in lean protein and is leaner than most other meats?

It is also high in tryptophan which is an amino acid responsible for the production of our feel good hormone serotonin.

Choose whole turkey breast meat and mince over processed deli turkey meat for a healthy boost to your recipes.

Healthy Kheema Curry

Cook time 25 minutes

Prep time: 5-10 minutes

Serves: 4

INGREDIENTS
1 tbsp good quality olive oil
3 cloves
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp turmeric
¼ tsp red chili powder or 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1 can organic crushed tomatoes
1 ½ tsp Celtic/Himalayan salt
500g turkey mince

1 tsp cumin seeds
1 cinnamon stick
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 ½ tbsp. ginger, grated
1 tsp ground cumin
½ cup water
1 tsp garam masala
½ cup frozen peas
½ large lemon juice

METHOD

In a large saucepan, heat olive oil over medium to high heat.
Add the cumin seeds, cloves and cinnamon stick.
Continuously stir spiced until fragrant (about ½ minute).
Add the onion, ginger, garlic and salt.
Cook until onion is soft (about 5 minutes)
Add turkey mince and stir and cook until the meat is browned and cooked through.
Add cumin, coriander, turmeric, chili powder, tomatoes and water.
Turn the stove to high and bring the mixture to the boil, cover and reduce heat to low.
Simmer for 10 minutes.
Add the garam masala, peas and the lemon juice.
Cook until peas are just thawed (don’t overcook them as you want some texture).
Remove cloves and cinnamon stick before serving.
Top with coriander leaves for decoration and serve with a side of unsweetened kefir or place into airtight containers and refrigerate for lunches for the week.

Enjoy this healthy and delightful herb and spice rich dish hot or cold.

 

 

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Anti inflammatory Eggplant Curry

Anti inflammatory eggplant curry

Anti inflammatory foods are important to our health and wellbeing as a whole as well as for specific health complaints such as headaches, muscle and joint aches and pains and immune support to name a few.

Curries are a great source of anti inflammatory herbs and spices. Ayurvedic medicine or Indian medicines have been using the spices in curries for many years to address various health conditions.

This Anti inflammatory Eggplant Curry with provide you with a fabulous dose of anti inflammatory support.

Enjoy!

Anti inflammatory Eggplant Curry Recipe

1 large eggplant (multi-vitamin and mineral powerhouse!)
• 2 tablespoons good quality extra virgin olive oil (anti-inflammatory)
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds (immune booster and digestion enhancer)
• 1 medium to large onion, sliced finely (immune enhancing, anti-inflammatory, allergy fighting, cholesterol lowering)
• 2 crushed garlic cloves (immune enhancing, anti-inflammatory and cholesterol lowering)
• 2 – 3 cm piece ginger (depending how much you love ginger, me, I go for THREE), peeled and finely chopped (anti-inflammatory goodness!)
• 1 tablespoon curry powder (anti-inflammatory goodness!)
• 1 large diced tomato (Lovely lycopene and vitamin C antioxidants)
• 1 finely chopped green chilli (anti-inflammatory goodness! metabolism boosting)
• 1 teaspoon Celtic or Himalayan salt (these salts contain wonderful minerals that regular table salts do not)
• 1/4 bunch finely chopped coriander (all round awesome herb for almost everything)

 

Preheat your oven to 190C.

Place the eggplant on a medium sized baking sheet. Use a fork to spike the eggplant all over to allow heat to penetrate through. Place in the oven to bake for 20 minutes or until it feels soft/tender.  Remove from the oven, allow to cool enough to be able to peel and chop the eggplant.

Heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan over a medium heat. Add the cumin seeds and onion to the oil. Stir until the onion softens and slightly browns, roughly 5 minutes.

Add the pre-prepared tomato, garlic, ginger and curry powder to the saucepan with the onion and cook for a further 1 minute.

Stir in the chopped eggplant and green chilli, and season with salt to taste. Place a lid or appropriate cover over the mix, turn to a higher heat and cook for 10 minutes to allow the flavours to soak in.

Lift the lid or cover, turn the heat right down to low and cook for a further 5 minutes with the lid off. Garnish with the coriander.

This curry can be served as a side dish or as a dish on its own, possibly with brown basmati rice or quinoa

I served mine with fish, asparagus, roasted capsicum and fish. Random I know, but it was worth it 🙂

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